1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of the publishing process for scholarly articles and more specifically to the peer review process that takes place prior to the publication of scholarly articles.
2. Related Art
In scientific, technical, historical, medical, and other scholarly journals, it is typically the standard that all articles to be published are previously reviewed by competent, experienced, and neutral scholars in the field of the article. The reviewers screen submitted articles to ensure that publications in scholarly journals live up to the very high standards of the scientific method, which requires adequate documentation of repeatable experiments and logical conclusions therefrom. As is normal in the industry, at least two reviewing scholars typically must approve of the article before the editors of the journal will consider the article for publication.
In the past, this rigorous review process has been arduous and time consuming for both the journals and the authors. The first step in this process, after the article has been written, requires that the author submit several copies of the article to a selected journal for consideration. To do so, the author would make several copies of the manuscript and ship them to the publication from which the author desired consideration. Typically, the shipping would be done by first class U.S. mail or a delivery or courier service. Additionally, prior to submission the author must usually obtain Copyright Transfer and manuscript submission forms from the journal, and enclose the completed forms with the submission.
When the journal receives the hardcopy manuscript from the author, the journal records the receipt of the manuscript in a paper or computerized manuscript tracking database. The journal also sends a confirmation to the author that the manuscript has been received. Next, the editorial staff determines several potential reviewing scholars who have expertise in the particular field that is the subject matter of the article. The journal would then contact these several scholars to see if they were available and willing to review the article. If so, then the review process would begin.
The review process commences with the journal shipping a copy of the submitted article to each scholar who will review the submission. The reviewing scholars, after receiving the article, read through the article and make appropriate comments. Typically, a deadline for the review has been imposed by the journal to ensure that the reviewing scholar performs this duty in a timely fashion.
In the traditional process, after the reviewing scholar has read through and provided comments on the article, the draft article along with the comments are returned to the editors at the magazine. Once all of the reviews are complete, the editors compile the comments and evaluate the articles based on the comments from the reviewing scholars and the merits of the article. An editorial decision is then made regarding the appropriateness of the article for publication. Typically, submitted articles are (1) accepted for publication; (2) provisionally accepted for publication pending minor review; (3) provisionally accepted for publication pending a major revision of the article and resubmission for evaluation; or (4) rejected.
Once an editorial decision has been made, the decision along with the comments from the reviewing scholars are forwarded to the author. In this way, the author is provided with the status of the submission as well as feedback on how to improve the article. The author then makes revisions to the article as necessary. In the case where the author disagrees with the comments of the reviewing scholar, the author would prepare responses to the comments of the reviewing scholar, and submit those comments to the editors along with the updated draft. For articles requiring resubmission for evaluation, the peer review and article revision process could include several iterations.
After the journal receives a revised draft with responses from the author, the editors begin to review all of the material in order to make a decision about whether to publish the article. This can be an extremely time consuming process for the editors who must keep straight the original text of the article, the comments from the reviewing scholars, the edits from the author, and the responses from the author. When all of the appropriate reviews and revisions and remarks have been considered, the editorial staff then makes its decision regarding publication of the article.
When an article has been accepted, it is forwarded to copy editors who then ensure that the paper meets the journal's style criteria. The copy editors also format the manuscript into the appropriate layout for the journal. This formatting process produces an article in the form of a “galley proof,” which is simply the article formatted in the correct layout for the particular journal. The galley proofs are then transmitted to the corresponding author and the responsible editorial staff for final approval. After approval, the galley proofs are typically sent to the journal's production facility for inclusion in the next edition.
The problem with the present method is that it is too time consuming and costly. In today's reduced time to market business environment, cumbersome and iterative review processes that delay publication of time sensitive material can be very costly. Therefore, what is needed is an improved method for facilitating the peer review process of scholarly manuscripts submitted to professional journals for publication.